A Look At CVR Energy's (NYSE:CVI) Share Price Returns

CVR Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CVI) shareholders will doubtless be very grateful to see the share price up 45% in the last quarter. But that doesn't help the fact that the three year return is less impressive. Truth be told the share price declined 22% in three years and that return, Dear Reader, falls short of what you could have got from passive investing with an index fund.

View our latest analysis for CVR Energy

To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

Over the three years that the share price declined, CVR Energy's earnings per share (EPS) dropped significantly, falling to a loss. Due to the loss, it's not easy to use EPS as a reliable guide to the business. However, we can say we'd expect to see a falling share price in this scenario.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on CVR Energy's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What about the Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

We'd be remiss not to mention the difference between CVR Energy's total shareholder return (TSR) and its share price return. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. CVR Energy's TSR of was a loss of 8.1% for the 3 years. That wasn't as bad as its share price return, because it has paid dividends.

A Different Perspective

CVR Energy shareholders are up 15% for the year. But that was short of the market average. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it's actually better than the average return of 6% over half a decade This could indicate that the company is winning over new investors, as it pursues its strategy. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand CVR Energy better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that CVR Energy is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is potentially serious...

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.

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